Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

July 2, 1986

THE SCREEN: 'BIG TROUBLE,' WILD STUNTS

By Walter Goodman

Published: July 2, 1986

IF, as is not unlikely, you should lose track of what is going on in ''Big Trouble in Little China'' and think you have wandered into a festival of ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' ''Romancing the Stone,'' ''Star Wars,'' ''The Karate Kid,'' ''Flash Gordon'' and a throng of facsimiles, don't be concerned. What matters is the stunts and the spirit, and this latest set of exotic exploits of an indomitable hero (Kurt Russell) and a spunky heroine (Kim Cattrall) gives good value.

This ''mystical action-adventure-comedy-kung fu-monster-ghost sto ry,'' which opens today at the RKO Warner Twin and other theaters, gets going with a ferocious battle between opposing bands of Chinese gunmen, knife-slingers, sword-jugglers and high kickers and ends the same way, only more so, with blades and bodies flashing, hissing and sizzling and with sensational feats of levitation and clashings in air. I couldn't always tell the good guys from the bad, but my favorites were three fellows in what seemed to be outsized lampshades, their main weapon vividly colored static electricity; when they got charged up, they came on like manic household appliances in perpetual short circuit.

As for the plot, which you have already lost track of, it centers on a cocky semitrailer-truck driver named Jack Burton, played by Mr. Russell as a man with a no-nonsense approach to the many nonsensical affronts he is subject to along the way (or, just possibly, dreams up himself). At one point, he inquires of a bad guy, ''Are you crazy, is that your problem?'' Streetwise to the point of stupidity, repeatedly taken by surprise but never admitting it, Jack speaks for you and me, only he has better reflexes.

With the help of a couple of Chinese pals (Dennis Dun and Victor Wong, a Chinese leprechaun), Jack sets out to rescue a green-eyed girl or two from the fangs of the ageless Lo Pan, ''a creature of dark, destructive power.'' This self-pitying version of Fu Manchu (James Hong camping it up), resides in the bowels of San Francisco's Chinatown, which you can reach by firepole. Naturally, he has to marry and sacrifice a green-eyed damsel in order to take over the universe, and he will stop at nothing to do so.

In kidding the flavorsome proceedings even as he gets the juice out of them, the director, John Carpenter, is conspicuously with it. When a magic potion is served round, it is done in a yuppie bar. The screenplay by Gary Goldman, David Z. Weinstein and W. D. Richter provides a diligent and dumb newspaper reporter from the radical Berkeley People's Herald named Margo (Kate Burton) who talks like a Saturday serial. The script is generous with throwaway lines: ''I don't like the looks of this,'' remarks one of the good guys as a bloodthirsty hoard charges him. upon him. Before dashing into an elevator to escape the hot blades of some crazed pursuers, somebody is sure to inquire, ''Is it going up?'' ''Big Trouble in Little China'' is an upscale send-up.

''Big Trouble in Little China'' is rated PG-13 (''Special Parental Guidance Suggested'' for Those Younger Than 13) because of some bad language.